In a darkened convention center hall filled with Southern Baptist messengers, individual pinpoints of light illuminated the darkness. Moments earlier, in passionate pleas, International Mission Board (IMB) President David Platt and North American Mission Board (NAMB) President Kevin Ezell asked Southern Baptist messengers not to be cold toward the vast lostness in the world. Instead join in God’s global mission as church planters, missionaries and sending churches to take the light of the gospel to a dark world, they urged.
IMB and NAMB partnered June 17 in a Church and Mission Sending Celebration to recognize 59 missionaries and church planters and their sending churches during the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) annual meeting.
Platt said in his message, “The stakes are too high, the gospel is too good for us to settle for incremental increases in Southern Baptist church planters and missionaries. We need to open the door for tens of thousands more people to engage the nations with the gospel.
“Wouldn’t you want that to be our legacy? Don’t we cry out for God to bring a Moravian-type missions movement among us so that our legacy might be a convention of churches who send thousands, tens of thousands of God-exalting, Christ-following, Spirit-led, biblically faithful, people-loving, high-quality missionaries and church planters across North America and the nations for the sake of God’s fame?”
The Sending Celebration symbolically celebrated commissioning the new missionaries and church planters to share Jesus as the Light of the World (John 8:12). Christian artists Shane & Shane led the audience in worship.
Of those featured, 27 will serve in North America in the Northeast, South, Midwest, West and Canada, while 32 will serve overseas in East, Central and South Asia; North Africa and the Middle East; Europe; Sub-Saharan Africa and the Americas.
Stationed throughout the crowd, missionary families and representatives of their sending churches stood with an open lighted “book” illuminating their faces while information about the missionaries and their work was displayed.
On stage Ezell interviewed Chuck Herring, pastor of First Baptist Church, Collierville, Tennessee, about being a sending church pastor. Herring has led the church to adopt an unengaged, unreached people group in South Asia and send a family to plant a church in Toronto.
Sending church role
“It’s good for our church to have ownership of a church plant in an unreached part of North America,” Herring said.
Being a sending church does not require a large congregation or a lot of money, Ezell said. “It’s about having a big heart and compassion and a passion to reach people here and around the world.”
Prior to the sending celebration, Platt and Ezell delivered their entities’ reports to convention messengers.
Messengers resoundingly affirmed Platt following his report on the IMB trustees’ recent policy changes.
In May, trustees voted on a statement of qualifications that must mark every single IMB missionary: a vibrant disciple of Jesus who is making disciples; called by God and affirmed by church leaders and IMB; committed to the vision, mission, values and beliefs of IMB; and a baptized Southern Baptist church member “with a clear conviction of truth” as expressed in the Baptist Faith and Message.
IMB took these steps to “tether ourselves in the tightest possible way to the confessional statement that unites Southern Baptists,” Platt said. Contrary to what some news sources falsely reported, he added, the policy in no way signals a change in practice regarding how IMB works in relation to Southern Baptist doctrinal distinctives or a shift in IMB missionaries’ practice when it comes to issues like tongues or private prayer language.
“To be crystal clear, IMB missionaries do not and will not in any way promote speaking in tongues or private prayer language,” Platt said. He noted that he and IMB have deep concerns about this issue, which is why IMB has an intentional appointment, training and supervisory process.
Additionally, the new policy that replaces the previous policy on divorce simply means that if a person has divorce in their past, they are not automatically disqualified from playing a part in spreading the gospel overseas, he said.
During the NAMB report, Ezell shared that Southern Baptists started 985 new churches in 2014, which is a 5 percent increase over the previous year, and that 58 percent of them were non-Anglo.
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To learn more about being a sending church, visit imb.org/send or namb.net/mobilizeme.
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